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Hey everyone,

Another amazing story going on this week. Christian Ranieri is a 14 year old with Autism going to school on Long Island.  He went in front of the Board of Education of his school district to self advocate for himself, stating that after a month in school multiple staff members at his school were not following the accommodations set forth by his IEP. He worked on the speech for 3 hours! Within minutes of beginning his speech multiple board members cut him off stating that this was not the appropriate forum for this issue to be discussed. After Christian and his parents stated that their letters and attempts to interact with the school board had been ignored, the board members continued to attempt to silence both Christian and his family.  Christian and his family repeatedly tell the board members that Christian solely wants to be heard. He does not want to have a discussion, he does not want to argue, he solely wants to be heard after being suspended for what both he and his family feel is for something related to his disability.

I thought that during this Anti-Bullying month, this was a great story to post. It shows a member of the community standing up for himself, when others are telling him that he is unable to do so.

Heres a link to the article about Christian and a video of his speech.

Video Of Self-Advocate Silenced By School Board Goes Viral

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgUu0roVXAs]

–Steph